Frontier hospitality extended credit to destitute travelers

Evidence

When I had ridden fifteen miles I stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was empty, and the next was also deserted. So I was compelled to go to the last house, where two young men are “baching.” There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty, trusted me “till next time.” — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 218

Categorization

• XREF: The chain is compact and telling: empty ranch, deserted ranch, last house — scarcity forces the choice between feeding horse and self, and poverty produces trust rather than refusal.
• CANDY: A one-sentence elevator story: a lone woman traveler in the 1870s Rocky Mountains decides between dinner for herself and feed for her pony, and a stranger says ‘pay me next time.’